Blessed be the name of Jesus our Lord who
blesses us every day in heavenly places. He surrounds us with His
steadfast love and tender mercies all the days of our lives. As we
reflect on our lives, looking through the rearview mirror, we are amazed and
stunned how the Lord has been there all the way. In the words of John
Newton, "Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come.
'Twas grace that brought me safe thus far and grace shall lead me
home." As we gaze to the future through the front mirror we can see
the wonderful horizons and vistas designed and decorated by the Lord of beauty
and blessings.
My
wife Alice is planning to retire at the end of this school year from full time
teaching at the Marathon Central High School. Alice has been a born
teacher. The Lord has gifted blessed her with the ministry of teaching.
Her main focus of ministry has been the home, mainly teaching and training our
beautiful daughters. Gradually, she extended her teaching ministry to the
churches we served and finally to Public School arena. She has been used
of the Lord touching lives, countless of them, over the years.
I
am planning a mega- Retirement party in honor of Alice to be held on Saturday,
July 1, 2017. It will be held at the "Iconic" Marathon Civic
Center. It will be a dinner reception, with dinner to be served at 6:00
PM. We are planning to prepare and serve exotic and bizarre
foods. You are cordially and warmly invited to come, share, and
celebrate. Some of our friends who are some of the best chefs and cooks will
be preparing the dinner with much love which will be served with much
joy. The menu will include some International cuisine. We expect
that our daughters and their families, along with all our grandchildren, will
be there. We are excited about this event and praying that the Lord of
banquet and the Host at every table will bless our time
together. July 1 is the birthday of our youngest daughter,
Jessica. July 1 is also my official birthday. I will be celebrating
my 70th birthday (??) this year. We have so much to celebrate
and give thanks to Jesus.
We
are inviting all friends living outside the region. Marathon is located
strategically on the I-81 corridor between Binghamton, NY and Syracuse, NY.
We are very close to Syracuse International Airport - only 45 miles
driving distance. July 1 will be wonderful time to visit NEW York. We
live in a very close proximity to the Finger Lakes and the Great
Lakes, the 1000 Islands. the Adirondacks, the Catskills mountains, Niagara
Falls, and New York City. (We are within about 3-3 1/2 hours driving
time from the furthest of them. We are close to vineyards, orchards,
farms, and pastures of the region and quite close to Canada. We
are also not far from Binghamton University, Cornell University, and Syracuse
University, along with one of the largest malls in the country
- Destiny USA. For our friends who live outside region - We
will make you happy. For lodging purposes we have the historic Three Bear
inn in Marathon. We have everything you need and want. If we
do not have it then you do not need it.
This
will be a wonderful occasion and opportunity to celebrate the life and witness
of my wife Alice. We met in 1973 in Bangalore, India. The Lord has
blazed our lives with His grace and glazed our journey with His love.
Alice is a relentless and tireless servant of Jesus. During our
life's journey she served Lord and His people with much love joy. She is
multitalented and tasked, gifted and graced, She has entertained many
angels unaware. She has sewed, knitted, made a house into our home
time and again. She has prepared thousands of meals and served the
people and servants of Jesus from around the world. She has prepared some
very special meals and banquets to missionaries, Bishops. summer interns, and
short term missionaries. She prepared to host and feed young singers
and musicians who were part of the Continental Singers and Orchestra for
over 30 years. She prepared and served meals for our youth groups going
to Kingdom Bound, summer camps, VBS, and other events. She has welcomed
and served the musicians from Russia for several years. One year she
prepared a banquet for a large group of German Christian youth and
musicians who came our church for great concert. She had prepared the
meals for the shut ins,and for the recovering at home those grieving at
the death of loved one. She single-handedly and joyfully fixed a wedding
feast for a young couple. One time she even made a very special meal
for Dr. Ravi Zacharias, who blessed us by his visit to our home.
On
Saturday July 1 we will celebrate the grace and love of Jesus which Alice has
embodied in her lifetime of ministry. We are inviting you to
join us. There will be plenty of space, plenty of food, and enough love for
all of us. Please mark your calendars.
Alice
and I walked again yesterday afternoon. We are blessed with open fields
and spacious meadows. I love when the days are getting warmer and
daylight lingers in the evening. We saw seven geese flying with holy
honks as we were walking over the fields. We are thrilled and blessed to
know that spring is around the corner. I spoke with someone
yesterday who shared that her family has already made over 100 gallons of
maple syrup. This is the first time ever they have made maple syrup
in the bleak mid-winter of January.
I
love sunshine. One of the readings for last Sunday was taken from Psalm
27. The Lord is my light and salvation; whom shall I fear?
During the darkest days of winter we are reminded that
the Lord is our Light and He is our salvation. Jesus, the Light of
the world, descends upon the world of darkness. He overwhelms the
darkness and even the grave. When Jesus, the Immanuel, meets
us where we are something good and glorious transpires. What a
change! What a transformation! What a New Birth! What happens when
blindness meets the Light of the World, when sinners meet the Savior, when
the hungry meet the Bread of life, when the thirsty meets the Living Water,
when lost sheep meet the Good Shepherd, when the rejected meet
the incarnate Love, and the dead meet Christ who is the Resurrection and
the Life? The blind receive their sight, the sinful receive forgiveness,
the hungry are filled and satisfied, the lame walk, the sick are cured, people
are made whole, the disconsolate find hope, prisoners are set free, those who
once mourned are filled with joy, the dead are raised and eternal life is
inherited. This is the promise of the risen, eternal Christ. Jesus
said, “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed
by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the
creation of the world’” (Matthew 25:34).
In
this present world things do not always work out the way they are supposed to
or the way we want them to. There is hunger, thirst, and sickness.
The question is, "Will we trust God until then, as we go through
difficulties and disappointments? Will we live in hope? Will we
only see the present circumstances and allow ourselves to sink into bitterness
and despair?" As surely as sunrise conquers the darkness, and Spring
triumphs over winter, God’s new day will heal all the wrongs of the
world. Weakness will be turned to strength. Rejection will be forgotten
in God’s embrace. Joy comes in the morning. Love will conquer hate,
good will triumph over evil and Jesus will reign. Jesus said, “I have
told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world
you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world”
(John 16:33).
Jesus
said that in the end, “The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will
weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. . . .
Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father”
(Matthew 13:41-43).
I
recently read the following story: “Back in the 1920s, when Lou Little coached
football at Georgetown University, he had a player of average ability who
rarely got into the game. Yet he was fond of him, and especially liked
the way he walked arm-in-arm with his father on campus. Shortly before
the big contest with Fordham, the boy’s mother called the coach with news that
her husband had died that morning of a heart attack. ‘Will you break the news
to my son?’ she asked. ‘He’ll take it better from you.’ The student
went home heavy hearted, but three days later he was back. ‘Coach,’ he
pleaded, ‘will you start me in the Fordham game? I think it’s what my
father would have liked most.’ After a moment’s hesitation, Little said,
‘Okay, but only for a play or two.’ True to his word, he put the boy in —
but never took him out. For 60 action-packed minutes, that inspired young
man ran and blocked like an All-American. After the game, Little praised
him, ‘Son, you were terrific! You’ve never played like that before.
What got into you?’ ‘Few people knew it,’ answered the boy, ‘but my
father was totally blind. Today was the first time he ever saw me
play!’” In fact, all of us are blind and in need of Jesus' touch.
One day our healing will be complete - on that day when God makes all things
new. It is God's promise.
In Christ,
Brown
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